Klea Blackhurst, Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch: A Swingin’ Birdland Christmas

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Klea Blackhurst, Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch

A Swingin’ Birdland Christmas

Birdland, New York, December 22, 2014

Reviewed by Ron Forman for Cabaret Scenes

Billy-Stritch-Jim-Caruso-Klea-Blackhurst-A-Swingin'-Christmas-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212The mix of Klea Blackhurst, Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch in A Swingin’ Birdland Christmas [running through December 27] is the perfect recipe for a wonderful way to end a holiday afternoon in Manhattan. Working seamlessly together, they mix old and some new holiday songs, mostly performed up-tempo, with Stritch on piano, Daniel Glass on drums and Steve Doyle on bass providing the appropriate swinging accompaniment for the venue.

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Caruso and Blackhurst open with “The Holiday Season” and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” Stritch and Blackhurst perform “The Christmas Waltz” with a delightful counterpoint arrangement by Sharon Douglas and Aaron Weinstein.

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Stritch’s “The Christmas Song” is followed by an amusing story of how Mel Tormé and Bob Wells wrote the song on the hottest day of the year…in California.
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The three stars unite in perfect harmony for a medley of “It Happened in Sun Valley” and “Snow.” Stritch does a hilarious medley of really bad Christmas songs.
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Caruso sings a very funny “Regifting” with melody borrowed from Irving Berlin’s “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” The show closes with each performer doing a different version “Jingle Bells,” followed by an encore of a sing-along “White Christmas” which left this cheering audience feeling warm all over.

Ron Forman

Ron Forman has been a Mathematics Professor at Kingsborough Community College for 45 years. In that time, he has managed to branch out in many different areas. From 1977 to 1994 he was co-owner of Comics Unlimited, the third largest comic book distribution company in the USA. In 1999,after a lifetime of secretly wanting to do a radio program, he began his weekly Sweet Sounds program on WKRB 90.3 FM, dedicated to keeping the music of the Great American Songbook alive and accessible. This introduced him to the world of cabaret, which led to his position as a reviewer for Cabaret Scenes.